For the last few years, Prince Harry has been pursuing legal action against various media companies, including one suit against News Group Newspapers, the publishers of The Sun and the now defunct News of the World, that originated in October 2019. During his ongoing battle with Associated Newspapers, the royal family has remained largely silent on his pursuit. But in a court filing Tuesday as part of the News Group suit, Harry’s legal team said that his brother, Prince William, privately settled his own claim over phone hacking with NGN in 2020 for a for a “very large sum of money.”

The revelation came in response to NGN’s request to strike Harry’s case, arguing that too much time had elapsed since Harry first learned about the alleged phone hacking for his claim to go forward. In filings, according to reports, Harry said he did not pursue legal action when he learned about potential hacking in 2012 because of a “secret agreement” between the palace and NGN not to publicly bring claims. 

“The reason for this was to avoid the situation where a member of the royal family would have to sit in the witness box and recount the specific details of the private and highly-sensitive voicemails that had been intercepted,” Harry said, according to the BBC. “This agreement, including the promises from NGN for delayed resolution was, obviously, a major factor as to why no claim was brought by me at that time.”

When contacted by the Financial Times, NGN declined to talk about any “any confidential settlement with Prince William.” The company’s lawyer, Anthony Hudson KC, told the BBC that the claims of a secret agreement between the palace and the company were “flatly inconsistent” with other parts of his case and had “extreme vagueness” as to the parties and terms of the agreement.

According to The Guardian, Harry’s filings claim that the late Queen Elizabeth II had given her approval for Harry to seek an apology from News UK. According to the newspaper, the filing includes an email from Sally Osman, then communications secretary for Buckingham Palace, authorizing Harry to reach out to News Corporation’s CEO Robert Thomson and News UK CEO Rebekah Brooks in 2018. Ultimately, per The Guardian, no apology was forthcoming.  

Though the details of the situation are vague, Harry’s claims give some context to the timing of Harry’s series of legal actions against the British media, and why he has pursued it with aggressiveness even as his family has not expressed its support. Harry’s case against NGN is only one of three ongoing cases against tabloids. He attended a hearing in his case against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail, last month and is expected to testify in his case against Reach, the publishers of the Mirror and Sunday Mirror, in June.